A Note From the Resident
by The Light's Refrain
Summary: ONESHOT Danny wakes up one day to a clean room and a rather disturbing note on his door. Maybe he's not as in control as he likes to think? Or maybe...


_Hello! I've finally reached the landmark of twenty stories on ffnet. Yay! This is my first Danny Phantom fanfic though, particularly based on the episode 'Identity Crisis'. Though the overall subject is serious, I tried to maintain a healthy dosage of the typical DP humor._

_Anyway, I know probably about every third DP story is about this kind of thing, but there is a slight twist to this one._

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, even if I managed to stuff him in a Fenton thermos. Then it would just be kidnapping (plagiarism literally means 'to kidnap', btw) I don't own Superman either._**

A Note From the Resident

That night, Danny Fenton went to sleep in his messy room, as was the norm. Fighting malevolent spirits could wear anybody out, after all.

When he woke up in the morning, however, his room was perfectly clean. Astronaut and videogame magazines were stacked in neat square piles, all his clothes were hung up tidily in the closet, and everything had been dusted. The floor had even been vacuumed.

The fourteen-year-old boy stared, and the more he stared, the more he was sure that this was _not _how he had left his room when he went to sleep. Still feeling groggy, as if he had slept too long, or perhaps too little, he pushed himself out of bed.

"Okaaaay, this is weird," Danny said to himself, as he examined his room further. "I mean, I don't remember cleaning my room, unless I did it in my sleep…which would be really freaky…was that Superman poster there before?"

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the door, a note taped to it. The note had apparently been taken from his own notepad, for it had the usual stars and spaceships fringing its dark blue edges.

"What's this?" Danny mused, walking to the door and tearing the note off. He'd been talking to himself a lot lately, now he thought about it.

_Dear Resident, _the note began.

"Resident? That doesn't sound like Mom, or anyone else I know for that matter."

_You will find your room in perfect condition. I even made a few refinements. Do you like it?_

"Do I like it? I'd like to know who's been messing with my room!" Danny growled, before continuing to read.

_By the way, this is Danny. The real Danny._

"What?! The real Danny?! What's this guy talking about? _I'm _the real Danny!" the teen retorted. "Who is this wise guy?"

_Who do you think it is, slovenly one?_

"Who do I think-"

Then it occurred to him. There was only one person, or rather one _ghost_, or one _ghostly alter ego_ that it could be.

"Not again," he groaned, slapping his face with the note. "_Phantom_!"

His other self had taken to possessing Danny at night to do patrols for evil ghosts. _A hero needs no rest_, he had claimed. And now here he was, cleaning and rearranging his room at night too. No _wonder_ he felt so tired.

"He must have been bored last night," he grumbled, looking back down at the note.

_All your homework is done, as well as your make-up work and that big project you were so worried about. Oh, and I sent Plasmius and Skulker to the Ghost Zone for a while._

Danny noticed the school assignments on his desk, all unnaturally neat and organized of course. He flipped through the homework and saw that not only was it done, but done in great detail. His big project was so well-done, he was probably going to be suspected of copying someone else's.

"Man, he must've been _really _bored. How'd he get all this done in one night?"

He looked at the note.

_Oh yeah, today is April 23._

Danny stared at the note like it had grown hair.

"WHAT?! But it was April 9 yesterday!" Danny exclaimed. "How'd it go from the ninth to the twenty-third?!"

Then it hit him like a punch to the gut.

"That _jerk_! He overshadowed me for two weeks!"

And he hadn't had a clue about it. If it weren't for the room rearrangement and the note, he would've thought he had just slept one night away - not almost half a month.

…that kinda scared him, actually.

Not that he was going to admit it, especially if _he _was in the back watching his reaction. He glared at the note as if it was Phantom himself.

_Don't worry, I've taken good care of your body. In fact, I've improved it, because I've been going to the gym and working out. You've got to be in shape if you're going to fight evil. Make sure you keep using the subscription. I want _you _to take good care of our body too._

"That guy…telling me what to do with myself as if _he's _in charge…" Danny growled. "And what does he mean by _our _body?! It's _mine_!"

Though Danny did notice that his body was leaner and more muscular.

_Hey, it's been a fun two weeks. Defeating evil ghosts, saving people, hanging out with Sam and Tucker, flying around town, improving our grades…oh yeah, you've got A's on your latest tests. It helps to study and not panic, you know._

Danny's eye twitched.

_But now I'm tired, so I'm going to let you take over for a while._

Danny paused and reread.

_For a while._

Danny's grip crumpled the paper slightly.

_Do you think you can do better?_

That was the end of the note. Danny balled it up roughly and threw it at his trashcan. It fell short of its destination.

"Stupid Phantom! Thinking he can rule me! Thinking that he's _better_ than me!" he ranted, stomping across the room. "Well I'll show him!"

Danny glared at the Superman poster, knowing that it was Phantom that was into superheroes and not him, and then began to rip it off the walls.

_HEY! What do you think you're doing?!_

Danny felt his body grow cold mid-tear, his body paralyzed by the partial possession.

"What do you think _you're _doing?!" Danny snapped aloud. "This is _my _room, not yours!"

_It's my room too! I just share it with you! Like my body!_

"_Your_ body?! _You're _the freeloader here!"

"No _you _are!" Phantom answered aloud, snatching Danny's voice for his own use. "I'm the one who does all the work!"

"Of course you do all the work if you overshadow me!" Danny retorted, reclaiming his voice.

"That's because you can't do it right!" Phantom argued back, stealing Danny's voice again. Danny's sight was tainted with green, meaning that his eyes were glowing. Closing his eyes tight, Danny forced the green out of his vision and the ghost out of his throat.

"Oh yeah-"

"Danny?" his mother's voice asked through the door. "Who are you talking to?"

Both Danny and Phantom were silent for a minute.

"TUCKER!" Danny yelled to no one in particular. "Using a Level 50 Plasma Gun on this level is _so _not fair! You're _so _going down this time!"

He paused, waiting to see if his mom took the bait.

"Oh I swear Danny, you get so worked up over those video games," his mom replied, a sigh heard through the door. "We'll be eating in a few minutes sweetie, so make sure to wrap up soon."

Her steps echoed down the hall.

Danny blew a sigh of relief, and then the aggravated expression returned to his face.

"Don't think I'm done with _you _yet," he spoke. "…But since I don't want either Mom or Dad to find out about you, we'll have to settle this more quietly…I know!"

He walked over to his desk, where his space-themed notepad rested. He tore off a page and began writing.

_**Why do you keep overshadowing me?**_

As soon as he stopped writing an abrupt coldness seized his arm, causing him to gasp. Danny watched with a muted detachment as the cold hand began writing words through another's will.

_Because I need to._

The warmth returned to Danny's arm, and he immediately jotted down his own response.

_**You need to? I can take care of things myself!**_

His arm went cold again and began to write freely. Danny shivered a little.

_Oh really? Do you remember when we split for a while, using the Ghost Catcher?_

Danny paused and thought about it, while he waited for his arm to thaw. He remembered that little adventure, sort of. His memories of that time were kinda fuzzy, actually.

Before Danny finished thinking his arm went ice cold again and began inscribing on the paper.

_I was the one with all the powers, though I didn't have the body. I worked to protect Amity Park and everyone in it. You, on the other hand, just wanted to goof off and be lazy. You didn't care what happened to anyone else._

Danny took hold of his possessed hand with his free one, forcing it to scrawl out his own words.

**Can't a guy get a break every now and then? I get sick of fighting ghosts all the time.**

He let his glacial arm go so it could scratch out a reply.

_If it were that simple, I wouldn't have to do this. _

Danny took his icy hand and made it write out his opinion on matters again.

_**What do you mean? I-**_

The cold hand jerked out of his grasp, leaving a long mark across the paper, and scribbled its reply below furiously.

_You didn't care about anything at all! Amity Park could have gone up in flames and you wouldn't have even blinked! You even tried to shoot me with your Dad's anti-ghost weapons! As long as you found it amusing, you didn't care what you did!_

Danny tried to halt his frozen arm, but it kept going at the same lightning pace. He suspected that he would have had writer's cramp if his arm hadn't been numb from the paranormal cold, a frigidness that was contaminating the rest of his body.

But he thought about it, the chills slithering under his skin making him shiver uncontrollably. No, he hadn't cared. He hadn't cared about a damn thing. But why hadn't he cared?

_I realized it that day. I was the soul, and you were just the body, only we weren't connected anymore. I overshadow myself, my body, and that's how you get ghost powers. But I'm not just the source of power. I'm the source of your motivation and emotion. Without me you just have your earthly selfish cravings, like you did that day. In other words, _I'm _the real Danny, not you. And I will overshadow you, because all noble heroes have to overcome and conquer the weakness of their bodies._

"Danny! Time for lunch!" his mother hollered.

_There's your answer. Can you do better than that?_

The cold arm stopped, letting the pen roll onto the floor. Danny stared at the words he, both sides of him, had written.

"Danny!"

"Coming!" Danny answered, hastily crumpling up the schizophrenic note and tossing it at the trashcan. His throw fell short again.

He opened the door and left his room, rubbing his right hand. It was slowly recovering its feeling, and it hurt as it defrosted. He doubted he could eat with it. He wondered if he could convince his parents that he had to eat with his other hand as part of a weird school assignment.

On the way down he bumped into his sister. Her concerned glance was met by a cross glare from him.

"Danny?" she asked.

"What?" he answered a little gruffly.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. "You don't seem like yourself today."

He paused, gave her a wide-eyed stare, and then mutely went down the steps.

IIIIII

A while later, Danny woke up to a clean room and another note on the door.

Only this time, a month had passed.

IIIIII

_Yes, the ending is left wide open, which probably aggravates some of you to no end XD. I am evil like that._

_The typical view on Danny and Phantom is that Danny is the original, or rightful one, while Phantom is the 'other' created by the accident. But when watching 'Identity Crisis', I was bothered by how Phantom seemed more like Danny than Danny did. When I thought about it later, Danny was driven by primitive wants while Phantom was driven by spiritual wants, which technically would make Phantom the soul, or the real Danny, and Danny the body/material instinct. And so this story came to being._

_Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Leave a review if you like._

_Cya!_


End file.
